One Of A Kind

Fred sighed. “I know when I’m licked. I may show up for pizza one Saturday night, though.”

She grinned. “You’d be welcome! I could show you off to my customers.”

“Leo wanted to know where you were working,” he said abruptly. “He wanted to come by and see you.”

Her face tautened. “I don’t want to see him.”

“So I heard. He was, uh, pretty vocal about the way you snubbed him.”

She tossed back her hair. “He deserved it. I’m nobody’s doormat. He isn’t going to walk all over me and get away with it!”

“He won’t like you working at Shea’s, no matter what you think.”

“Why do you care?” she asked suspiciously.

He couldn’t tell her that Leo might renege on the loan if he knew Fred was letting her work in such a dive. He felt guilty as sin for not coming clean. But he was so afraid of losing the ranch. It was Janie’s inheritance. He had to do everything he could to keep it solvent.

“He’s my friend,” he said finally.

“I used to think he was mine, too,” she replied. “But friends don’t talk about each other the way he was talking about me. As if I’d ever gossip about him!”

“I think he knows that now, Janie.”

She forced the anger to the back of her mind. “I guess if he knew what I was doing, he’d faint. He doesn’t think I can cook at all.”

“I did tell him you had a cooking job,” he confided.

Her eyes lit up. “You did? What did he say?”

“He was… surprised.”

“He was astonished,” she translated.

“It bothered him that you snubbed him. He said he felt really bad about the things he said, that you overheard. He, uh, told me about the fight you had at the ball, too.”

Her face colored. “What did he tell you?”

“That you’d had a bad argument. Seemed to tickle him that you had a temper,” he added with a chuckle.

“He’ll find out I have a temper if he comes near me again.” She turned. “I’m going to bed, Dad. You sleep good.”

“You, too, sweetheart. Good night.”

He watched her walk away with a silent sigh of relief. So far, he thought, so good.

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